Head Kahuna Korner
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Mike Hall

The two big things happening in NM homebrewing next month are the AM meeting
and the Spring Thing competition. The judging for the Spring Thing comp will be
held in Albuquerque at the Cabezon Brewing Company on the March 14th-16th
weekend. The Sunday judging will only be done if there are enough entries, but
the Friday night and Saturday judgings are definite. The Dukes of Ale are
really interested in getting some novice judges involved, partly to build up
the judging pool in New Mexico. Judging beer is not as hard as you might think.
If you've judged beer with us at one of the Atom Masher meetings, you have
enough experience to judge at the Spring Thing. Even if you haven't judged at
all before, you'll be matched with someone that has some experience and can
teach you the ropes. Of course, you do get better as you judge more, by
learning what the styles are really supposed to be like and by learning to put
the proper names to the tastes and smells, but a novice judge can really do a
pretty good job. One of the most important things about being a good judge is
to just write down what you're experiencing when you're tasting the beer --
after all, the brewers mostly want good feedback about their brews. If you're
interested in judging, get in contact with Jeff Graves of the Dukes of Ale. You
can contact him at 884-4335, or by email at jlgeag@highfiber.com.

We decided at the last Atom Masher meeting to hold a pub crawl in Santa Fe for
our March meeting, because we can. Isn't it great to have so many local pubs to
visit? We're going to visit four brewpubs -- okay, Il Vicino isn't technically
a brewpub, but it does have beer that's brewed in New Mexico by the owners.
Since it would probably be hard to make all four in one night, we'll go on a
Saturday. The Spring Thing is on the 15th, so the date for this crawl will be
Saturday, March 22nd. Here's the schedule:

  Atom Masher Santa Fe Pub Crawl -- Saturday, March 22nd

  12:00 - 1:15 -- Il Vicino
   1:15 - 2:30 -- Second Street Brewpub
   2:30 - 3:45 -- Blue Corn Cafe & Brewpub
   3:45 - 5:00 -- Wolf Canyon Brewpub

The idea is to spend about an hour at each place, and then move on in the 
next 15 minutes. If you can't make it at noon, join us later according to the
schedule above. Please try to arrange a designated driver to eliminate DWI
concerns.

We need a location for our April meeting, which will be an AMO Pale Ale
competition. You've still got time to brew if you hurry. We also need a
volunteer to run the judging. We'll decide these items sometime during the 
pub crawl.

Plans are well underway for our annual picnic in May, and for the campout in
August. If you want to get involved, there are some jobs that remain to be
done. Both of these events (especially the picnic) are good times to show off
your brewing techniques to the club, so start making up your recipes.

Make your next beer a good one...